764 réponses à ce sujet

[bEVEsthda]

"Niche" games? Does that mean games like 'mine Craft', 'Sim City' and TES?

Just make a good game. Looking towards making it more like something popular, has always been the road to failure in media arts.

P.S. But interactive movie -type of games are bl***y boring and meaningless, so if Bioware is seriously trying to make that their flavor, they better be fantazifantastically, unbelieveably mega-great. And console action "fun" is not the road towards that.

Modifié par bEVEsthda, 22 juin 2012 - 09:28 .

[ScotGaymer]

I just wanted to say that I think that it is possible to widen the appeal of a game or franchise without alienating your core fan base in order to maximise sales and profits for the developers. It just has to be done for the right reasons, and has to be done with great care.
Too many publishers and developers look at the big game/franchise of their day/genre and think "That game is selling really well! WHY CAN'T OUR GAME SELL THAT WELL? WIDEN THE APPEAL!" And that is just the wrong approach because it leads the developer to make all the wrong decisions regarding what to do with the game in order to widen its appeal.
Sometimes it is not possible to widen the appeal for a particular franchise in a particular genre any more than a previous iteration had achieved; and when the developer tries in this instance they only fail - often in a really epic way.

Two examples of a game sequel that was trying to "WIDEN THE APPEAL!" that failed are:

Master of Orion 3.
Fable 3.

And one game that it remains to be seen if its attempt at reaching a wider audience has failed or not is:

Mass Effect 3.

Must be something to do with the threes?

Seriously, let's look at my example games.

Master of Orion 3 was trying to be everything to everybody within the confines of the genre. It was ambitious, and the publisher gave the developers a huge budget (for the day), and gave them plenty of time to achieve their goals (at least as much as can reasonably be expected considering the publisher was Info-crap/Atari).
The game failed because the developers were trying to do to much with it; trying to achieve too much (at the behest of the publisher), and they had totally not comprehended what made Master of Orion 1 and 2 good games.
The game franchise pretty much launched the genre, and it failed so hard that it completely ruined the franchise so that now there will NEVER be another Master of Orion game. Not only that but the failure nearly irreparably damaged the entire genre as well.

Fable 3 was pretty much the same. Peter Molyneux got all gung ho about creating the perfect "family" game. Much like EAxis with Spore, Lionhead wanted to create a game that would appeal to "everyone".
And it ended up with a game that pretty much appealled to no one. A game that in many places actively offended people with its constant reminders to buy DLC, or having to go back to base to access any in game menus (I mean seriously WTF?).
Fable 3 has one single redeeming feature IMO, and that was the somewhat interesting magic system. In every single way it is a more water down, more boring, more bland, vastly inferior game to Fable 2 and even Fable 1.
The result? Peter Molyneux has abandoned Lionhead and Fable in it's entirety and defected to a new company he has co-founded.

Don't really want to touch ME3 because the jury is still out on that one. All I will say is that it is blatantly obvious to EVERYONE that Bioware was chasing a piece of the CoD pie (which was the "big" game this generation that all the publishers want to emulate, and want a part in) with Mass Effect 3; and has largely failed at it. It remains to be seen if Bioware can pull this game back from the brink or not.
The optimist in me thinks that Bioware can manage it; the pessimist in me thinks that ME3 is destined for Fanon Discontinuity.

Fanon discontinuity is something you NEVER want on any sort of widespread scale. It is something Bioware has already experienced with Mass Effect Deception; so you guys know how dangerous it can be. It can result in Canon Discontinuity ala the Superman movies (3 and 4 are literally ignored as a way of preventing them from damaging the franchise further - they were that bad).

A game that has apparently done it well is:

The Witcher 2.

I haven't played The Witcher 2. I played The Witcher 1 and it was the worst RPG I have ever had the misfortune of playing (though I confess I haven't touched Ultima 8/9 which are supposedly worse).
The gameplay in TW1 is just horrific. A cumbersome, unwieldy interface, bugs, odd design decisions that make no fricking sense, a lack of a proper tutorial that is in anyway comprehensive. All together destroyed every single attempt I made to play this game (apparently it has an awesome storyline).

According to scuttlebutt (community whispers and reviews) The Witcher 2 vastly improves on nearly every single level compared to The Witcher 1. Widening the appeal of the game in such a way that more people can play it and enjoy it without apparently alienating the core audience.
If true then The Witcher 2 is an example of a game that "widens the appeal" in the correct way, that is successful.

I confess I haven't been able to bring myself to play it cos of how bad the first game was for me.

So widening the appeal isn't always a bad thing. It can be done.

EDIT:
Apologies for the Wall o'text.

Modifié par FitScotGaymer, 22 juin 2012 - 04:32 .

[bEVEsthda]

@FitScotgaymer

They didn't exactly "widen the appeal" of TW2. They just did it better.
They rest on their strong points. Which is for instance, world building, where DA2 is outright silly in comparison. It goes on to the tone and atmosphere of the game, which I would say is almost outstanding. They are also remarkable in being a developer that do not exclusively target 12-14 year old males, (regardless of rating on cover). For that they also deserve praise.

I can deal with TW2's action gameplay scheme, and their fixed male protagonist. But I do think they're foul details. They maybe fit the total concept though. And maybe it will help them on the console. Anyway, they have held their course, just like Bethesda with TES, and they are reaping some success from it. I wish them all the success, despite that they are not delivering my kind of RPG. Such is the power of making a good game.

[Allan Schumacher]

I have heard that they removed the, as far as I'm concerned, rather mediocre combat system from the first one. I'm not sure why but many people had told me how awesome it was, but they must have been referring to the weapon variants or something, because I went in expecting amazeballs combat and was sorely disappointed :\\

Though TBH I don't know what the combat is in TW2 either. I have just heard "it's better"

[AkiKishi]

FitScotGaymer wrote...

A game that has apparently done it well is:

The Witcher 2.

I haven't played The Witcher 2. I played The Witcher 1 and it was the worst RPG I have ever had the misfortune of playing (though I confess I haven't touched Ultima 8/9 which are supposedly worse).
The gameplay in TW1 is just horrific. A cumbersome, unwieldy interface, bugs, odd design decisions that make no fricking sense, a lack of a proper tutorial that is in anyway comprehensive. All together destroyed every single attempt I made to play this game (apparently it has an awesome storyline).

According to scuttlebutt (community whispers and reviews) The Witcher 2 vastly improves on nearly every single level compared to The Witcher 1. Widening the appeal of the game in such a way that more people can play it and enjoy it without apparently alienating the core audience.
If true then The Witcher 2 is an example of a game that "widens the appeal" in the correct way, that is successful.

I confess I haven't been able to bring myself to play it cos of how bad the first game was for me.

So widening the appeal isn't always a bad thing. It can be done.

EDIT:
Apologies for the Wall o'text.

Combat system is a massive improvement. Still a bit clunky at first but once you get the hang of it it really flows well and becomes very intuative.

[Realmzmaster]

BobSmith101 wrote...

FitScotGaymer wrote...

A game that has apparently done it well is:

The Witcher 2.

I haven't played The Witcher 2. I played The Witcher 1 and it was the worst RPG I have ever had the misfortune of playing (though I confess I haven't touched Ultima 8/9 which are supposedly worse).
The gameplay in TW1 is just horrific. A cumbersome, unwieldy interface, bugs, odd design decisions that make no fricking sense, a lack of a proper tutorial that is in anyway comprehensive. All together destroyed every single attempt I made to play this game (apparently it has an awesome storyline).

According to scuttlebutt (community whispers and reviews) The Witcher 2 vastly improves on nearly every single level compared to The Witcher 1. Widening the appeal of the game in such a way that more people can play it and enjoy it without apparently alienating the core audience.
If true then The Witcher 2 is an example of a game that "widens the appeal" in the correct way, that is successful.

I confess I haven't been able to bring myself to play it cos of how bad the first game was for me.

So widening the appeal isn't always a bad thing. It can be done.

EDIT:
Apologies for the Wall o'text.

Combat system is a massive improvement. Still a bit clunky at first but once you get the hang of it it really flows well and becomes very intuative.

Combat was improved in Witcher 2, but accessibility was compromised. Witcher 1 can be played with either mouse/keyboard combination or just mouse. Witcher 2 on the PC must be played with a mouse/keyboard combination.

Bioware with BG, NWN and DA scores higher on accessibility on the PC because the game can be played with a mouse. Even DA2 which has a faster pace I have no problem playing with a mouse.

So while the combat system may be an improvement for many it is a setback for the physically challenged. Bethesda did the same action with TES. Daggerfall and before had a cursor based interface. Morrowind  and after went with movement by the keyboard and certain functions assigned to the mouse.

One of the reasons that PopCap is so successful is that their games are accessible to many people. A study conducted for PopCap shows 1 in 5 casual gamers are physically or mentally challenged.

www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/survey-disabled-gamers-comprise-20-of-casual-video-games-audience-57442172.html

[Allan Schumacher]

Those are good points, though I think any usage of the terms "accessibility" in this thread are more referring to "how appealing" a game is for a variety of people.

The COD games (since they get brought up a lot) aren't particularly "accessible" but based on their sales are evidently quite appealing.

[bEVEsthda]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Those are good points, though I think any usage of the terms "accessibility" in this thread are more referring to "how appealing" a game is for a variety of people.

The COD games (since they get brought up a lot) aren't particularly "accessible" but based on their sales are evidently quite appealing.

No. That's a false deduction. A couple of CoD games were really good. But I wouldn't say that CoD games of late has been particularly appealing. I regard quite a number of other games much more appealing. But I still buy (and play) every CoD game, because I have a pretty good idea of what I'll be getting.  But not even that is the true reason I buy them. It's become a habit. It's like I have all the others, - why shouldn't I have the next?

They have achieved that. The automatic customer. Bethesda has achieved the same. I, of course, have bought every game since Morrowind, but I now mean they have achieved that on a wider scale, just like CoD.

[Realmzmaster]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Those are good points, though I think any usage of the terms "accessibility" in this thread are more referring to "how appealing" a game is for a variety of people.

The COD games (since they get brought up a lot) aren't particularly "accessible" but based on their sales are evidently quite appealing.

Which is why the term appealing would be more appropriate as you state. Accessibility by definition means the degree to which a product, device or service is available to as many people as possible. The combat system in Witcher 2 is now more appealing in comparison to Witcher 1, but Witcher 1 was more accessible than Witcher 2. The point I was trying to make is that certain developers have scarifice the accessibility in later games of the series.

[ScotGaymer]

Okay so I take it everyone agree's with my overall point?

If TW2 doesn't count as widening the appeal successfully then I can't think of any more off the top of my head. Lol.

[TonberryFeye]

No game should try to "appeal to a wider audience." That's marketing speak for "I'm an idiot with no clue what I'm doing."

What games should do is be the best game they can be, and when sequels make changes to the formula it should be to improve the formula, not because "we think CoD players will like this more." or "this is how WoW does its sidequests so we will too!".

On that note... stop giving us cliffhangers. A long time back I came up with a viewpoint on them that I cling to still: "A cliffhanger is used to promise excitement later because there is no excitement now."

A game as big in scope as Dragon Age doesn't need to tie up every loose end - the world carries on without us, as it should, and we never learn how it all plays out. However, to set up the OGB and then just walk away from it without so much as a token explanation?

Looking back, that's part of what made me distrust DA2 in the first place. The more I learned, the less I liked; we weren't the Warden, we weren't a Warden, period. Morrigan wasn't coming back, and nor was her child...

DA2 should have picked up right where Witch Hunt left off. Bioware, you won't be forgiven for doing that again. I can accept that Origins wasn't written with a sequel in mind, and so certain aspects (ie: the Ritual happened) need to be set in stone regardless of what playthrough choices we make, but you have clearly set the OGB up to be a big part of Dragon Age lore, and now it's time ot deliver.

[bEVEsthda]

FitScotGaymer wrote...

Okay so I take it everyone agree's with my overall point?

If TW2 doesn't count as widening the appeal successfully then I can't think of any more off the top of my head. Lol.

Yep! I think that's it.
That's how you "widen appeal".

[wsandista]

Realmzmaster wrote...

A study conducted for PopCap shows 1 in 5 casual gamers are physically or mentally challenged.

www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/survey-disabled-gamers-comprise-20-of-casual-video-games-audience-57442172.html

Oh god. Realmzmaster I think you just gave some of the extreme hard-core gamers a talking point that will be used over and over to bash casual gamers.

[AndrahilAdrian]

TonberryFeye wrote...
A game as big in scope as Dragon Age doesn't need to tie up every loose end - the world carries on without us, as it should, and we never learn how it all plays out. However, to set up the OGB and then just walk away from it without so much as a token explanation?

Looking back, that's part of what made me distrust DA2 in the first place. The more I learned, the less I liked; we weren't the Warden, we weren't a Warden, period. Morrigan wasn't coming back, and nor was her child...

DA2 should have picked up right where Witch Hunt left off. Bioware, you won't be forgiven for doing that again. I can accept that Origins wasn't written with a sequel in mind, and so certain aspects (ie: the Ritual happened) need to be set in stone regardless of what playthrough choices we make, but you have clearly set the OGB up to be a big part of Dragon Age lore, and now it's time ot deliver.

If the OGB does return, it won't be a big plot point, so the game will be playable for those who didn't do the ritual. David Gaider said as much here: http://social.biowar...20&lf=8#3195476 
and a very good explaination for why it won't happen was posted on the DA fan site here: http://greywardens.c...d-baby-dilemma/ 
If future games were focused on the OGB, then Bioware would have to make it canon, which they aren't willing to do (first link) because it would alienate players who didn't make that choice. Dragon Age 3 will be about the mage-templar war, not Morrigan's child.

[Realmzmaster]

wsandista wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

A study conducted for PopCap shows 1 in 5 casual gamers are physically or mentally challenged.

www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/survey-disabled-gamers-comprise-20-of-casual-video-games-audience-57442172.html

Oh god. Realmzmaster I think you just gave some of the extreme hard-core gamers a talking point that will be used over and over to bash casual gamers.

They unfortunately do that already. No help is needed.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 24 juin 2012 - 12:47 .

[Realmzmaster]

TonberryFeye wrote...

No game should try to "appeal to a wider audience." That's marketing speak for "I'm an idiot with no clue what I'm doing."

What games should do is be the best game they can be, and when sequels make changes to the formula it should be to improve the formula, not because "we think CoD players will like this more." or "this is how WoW does its sidequests so we will too!".

On that note... stop giving us cliffhangers. A long time back I came up with a viewpoint on them that I cling to still: "A cliffhanger is used to promise excitement later because there is no excitement now."

A game as big in scope as Dragon Age doesn't need to tie up every loose end - the world carries on without us, as it should, and we never learn how it all plays out. However, to set up the OGB and then just walk away from it without so much as a token explanation?

Looking back, that's part of what made me distrust DA2 in the first place. The more I learned, the less I liked; we weren't the Warden, we weren't a Warden, period. Morrigan wasn't coming back, and nor was her child...

DA2 should have picked up right where Witch Hunt left off. Bioware, you won't be forgiven for doing that again. I can accept that Origins wasn't written with a sequel in mind, and so certain aspects (ie: the Ritual happened) need to be set in stone regardless of what playthrough choices we make, but you have clearly set the OGB up to be a big part of Dragon Age lore, and now it's time ot deliver.

The OGB is not a big part of Dragon Age especially if the DR is not done. Witch Hunt is a dlc and not considered canon. DA3 will be about the mage templar war. 

[Sweet Dirge]

Witch Hunt is a dlc and not considered canon.

That is a silly statement.

[Sylvius the Mad]

wsandista wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

A study conducted for PopCap shows 1 in 5 casual gamers are physically or mentally challenged.

www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/survey-disabled-gamers-comprise-20-of-casual-video-games-audience-57442172.html

Oh god. Realmzmaster I think you just gave some of the extreme hard-core gamers a talking point that will be used over and over to bash casual gamers.

Based on this, I now want BioWare to target some casual gamers.

Maybe that would prevent them from ever using action combat.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Realmzmaster wrote...

DA3 will be about the mage templar war.

I doubt we can say that with any confidence.  At most, we can suspect the game will be set during the mage-templar war.  But the war itself could well just be backdrop to a story on a smaller scale.

[Realmzmaster]

Sweet Dirge wrote...

Witch Hunt is a dlc and not considered canon.

That is a silly statement.

I assume you miss this post by David Gaider.

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/3171720%26lf%3D8#3195476

If the gamer did not do the DR it never happened. Therefore it cannot be considered canon unless the developers radically change their minds and come up with a lame excuse of how there is a OGB when two out of the three choices result in no OGB. So please elaborate on how it is a silly statement.

[Realmzmaster]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

DA3 will be about the mage templar war.

I doubt we can say that with any confidence.  At most, we can suspect the game will be set during the mage-templar war.  But the war itself could well just be backdrop to a story on a smaller scale.

True, but the war will be involved in some way. It will not be about the OGB unless Bioware plans to retcon the DR and make it canon.

[Sylvius the Mad]

No argument there (though I still think we should dispense with the entire idea of canon across multiple games).  I just thought you overreached with your war claims.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 24 juin 2012 - 03:25 .

[Sweet Dirge]

Realmzmaster wrote...

I assume you miss this post by David Gaider.

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/3171720%26lf%3D8#3195476

If the gamer did not do the DR it never happened. Therefore it cannot be considered canon unless the developers radically change their minds and come up with a lame excuse of how there is a OGB when two out of the three choices result in no OGB. So please elaborate on how it is a silly statement.

That did not say "Witch Hunt didn't mater."  If Morrigan slept with the Warden she still had a child, just a regular child.  If the Dark Ritual was not undertaken then the story is just about how the Warden is just trying to get some elf's book back.  Morrigan actually acknowlodges the Dark Ritual not being complete. 

So saying "Witch Hunt is DLC and not canon" for the sake of it being DLC is silly.

[Realmzmaster]

Sweet Dirge wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

I assume you miss this post by David Gaider.

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/3171720%26lf%3D8#3195476

If the gamer did not do the DR it never happened. Therefore it cannot be considered canon unless the developers radically change their minds and come up with a lame excuse of how there is a OGB when two out of the three choices result in no OGB. So please elaborate on how it is a silly statement.

That did not say "Witch Hunt didn't mater."  If Morrigan slept with the Warden she still had a child, just a regular child.  If the Dark Ritual was not undertaken then the story is just about how the Warden is just trying to get some elf's book back.  Morrigan actually acknowlodges the Dark Ritual not being complete. 

So saying "Witch Hunt is DLC and not canon" for the sake of it being DLC is silly.

Then it is not about the OGB which is what the poster I was responding to said was important for DA3. So in that regard Witch Hunt does not matter. Also if you did not download the dlc and many gamers did not the dlc does not matter.  Just like the Ultimate Scarifice did not matter for Awakening because Bioware allowed gamers to import the US warden as if the US never occurred. 

The developers set what is canon and nothing in Witch Hunt has been made canon.

[Realmzmaster]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

No argument there (though I still think we should dispense with the entire idea of canon across multiple games).  I just thought you overreached with your war claims.

I would dispense with canon over multiple games, but Bioware place themselves in that situation. I prefer that all loose ends be tied upo before the end of the game.